We just got back from a few days in the town of Almonte (it’s near Ottawa). Actually, the town is more precisely called Mississippi Mills, which was the result of an amalgamation of the town of Almonte and the townships of Ramsay and Pakenham in 1998.

The town of Almonte has had many names over the years. It first burst onto the scene in the early 19th century as Shipman’s Mills. The settlers were mainly Scottish and at its peak Almonte housed seven bustling woolen mills. In the mid-19th century, the town’s name was changed to Ramsayville and then later to Waterford.

But then the workers at the local post office discovered there already was a Waterford and informed the powers-that-be that a new name would have to be found.

At the time, relations between the U.S. and Great Britain had grown antagonistic due to the lingering ill-will caused by the War of 1812. Likewise, border skirmishes between Uncle Sam and Mexico increased this feeling of antagonism among these North American neighbours.

Mexico’s General Juan Almonte was a figure in these Mexican-American skirmishes and when Señor Almonte was named ambassador to the U.S., the good people of Waterford, themselves mistrusting the giant to their south and knowing that General Almonte had resisted U.S. encroachment, decided (in a gloriously Canadian manoeuvre) to honour the general by naming their town after a man who had never set foot on their picturesque little village.

Our visit to Almonte, during the fateful evening of the Toronto Raptors’ winning the NBA championship title, had serendipitous overtones, as Almonte was the birthplace of James Naismith, who (among other things) invented the game of … basketball!

Naismith reportedly struggled in the Almonte-area schools and would rather spend his days outside playing catch, hide-and-seek and duck-on-a-rock (more on this later).

He graduated high school in 1883 and henceforth enrolled in Montreal’s McGill University where, even though he was of average height and weight, was an outstanding athlete.

Upon gaining a diploma from the Presbyterian College in Montreal, Naismith embarked on a career in physical education, first at McGill and then at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Mass. (The Basketball Hall of Fame is named after Naismith and is located in Springfield.)

While in Springfield, Naismith was tasked with creating an indoor game for classes of rowdy students to de-energize their pent-up vigour, somewhat constrained by the harsh New England winters.

Naismith was given three prerequisites for this new game: it must be played in their moderately sized gymnasium; it must involve lots of running to keep the track athletes in shape; and it mustn’t be too rough so all players could take part.

It would be interesting to be able to know what vestiges of his early years in Almonte led to Naismith’s creation of the game of basketball. Some say his playing, as a boy, the aforementioned game of duck-on-a-rock had something to do with his creation.

Duck-on-a-rock is a medieval game in which a person guards a large “drake stone” from opposing players, who throw smaller stones to knock the drake stone down. Naismith soon learned (as he later utilized in basketball) that a soft lobbing shot was far more effective than a straight hard throw.

Naismith decided that finesse was going to be more important than brute force in his new game. He thus decided the softer soccer ball was the way to go. He also outlawed violent physical contact and decided to make the goal un–guardable by placing it high above the players’ heads.

Watching basketball games today, it all seems so simple. (Even simpler if you’re seven-feet tall with the leaping ability of a kangaroo!) But it took a genius from Ontario to set down the rules and create a game that today is played ‘round the world!

Oh yes … the pièce de resistance of my trip to Almonte was a visit to a travelling circus sideshow that happened to be visiting. It’s called “Carnival Diablo” and is billed as “The Strangest Show Unearthed.” Carnival Diablo plays up its weirdness and cosmic link to Victorian mysticism. The star of the show is a gentleman named “Nikolai Diablo” who thrills and mystifies his audience with a series of displays of marvellously camp prestidigitation.

Mr. Diablo takes us back a hundred years to a time when audiences marvelled at seemingly impossible occurrences … from nailing a spike into his nasal cavity to a number of impressive feats of mind-reading.

Watching his show, I privately saluted Mr. Diablo for the simple yet charmingly macabre way he is trying to preserve our willingness to believe in the outrageously unbelievable.